Catfish Con: This Young Woman Was The Victim Of ‘Master Manipulation’

A college freshman discovered she was being doubly duped on this week’s Catfish.

The tale unfolded when a girl named Janisa wrote in about her roommate Aubri, who’d been talking to a guy named Brian since they met on Snapchat two months before. But when Nev and guest host du jour, fashion model Slick Woods, traveled to Blinn College in Texas to investigate the case, they immediately found that Brian’s photos belonged to another guy. Still, they believed “Brian” was definitely nearby, as he knew about all the college’s hotspots.

That led Nev and Slick all around campus, where they met an RA named Frances. She swiftly took them to the rec center, and on the way, she got a text saying, “If they ask you, Courtney doesn’t know about Brian.”

Huh? Well, turns out, Courtney was Aubri’s other roommate, and the text was sent by their very own RA, Patrick. When confronted, Patrick claimed he sent the text simply to remind Frances to not disclose information about residents, but Slick wasn’t buying it.

“Not that believable,” she said.

So now, Nev had three suspects: Patrick, Courtney, and Janisa herself, because, as he put it, “Anytime a friend writes in, that always sets off an alarm bell.”

But who was the catfish? Drum roll, please… Courtney.

“I really have a lot of feelings for you … [but] I didn’t know what to do,” she explained when finally revealing the ruse. But get this: She had a whole lot of assistance.

“I was talking to Janisa about how I felt about you, and she was basically helping me come up with ideas,” Courtney said. “She actually created the Brian Snapchat. She did everything.”

And Patrick?

“I asked Patrick to help come up with some way of getting me out of this,” Courtney said.

In her defense, Janisa later claimed she helped catfish Aubri with good intentions. “The goal was to get Courtney to come out to you and let you know how much she cares about you,” she told her pal.

So why’d it go on for so long? “I didn’t want to walk up to [Aubri] and be like, ‘Hey, I’ve been lying to you.’ It’s already been hurting me,” she said.

Slick’s reaction? “I don’t like your response – the ‘because I was hurting’ [part],” she said. “It’s always, ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I,’ ‘I.’ I’m just not here for the sob story … That puppeteering is master manipulation.”

Aubri, meanwhile, said she felt “betrayed” and announced that she couldn’t be friends with either Janisa or Courtney. But apparently, she had a change of heart, as, two months later, she told Nev and Slick via videochat that the three were working on their friendships.

But how do you feel about the sham? Could you have given amnesty to Courtney and Jalisa, or would you have kicked them both to the curb? Tell us how you’d roll, then catch another Catfish on Wednesday at 9/8c.